


can't lie to you

by SafelyCapricious



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 19:23:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4361297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most people never meet their soulmate -- most people don't make a living of lying and aren't likely to notice when they meet someone they can't physically lie to. </p><p>Grant almost wishes he was most people. </p><p>(Almost, because the thought of someone else getting Jemma makes him see red.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	can't lie to you

**Author's Note:**

> I've been in a bit of a writing rut lately, so I'm very pleased to have this to show to you.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> This was supposed to be a tumblr drabble just to get my mind working again, but then I just kept writing, so. 
> 
> Also, I was listening to JD's Biospecialist mix ["I'm pretty when I lie"](http://8tracks.com/jdphoenix/i-m-pretty-when-i-lie) the whole time I was writing this.

Grant should tell Garrett. He knows he should. If this ruins Garrett’s plans…

It’s not his fault. Most people never find their soulmates – they tend to be the stuff of fairytales, rom-coms and torrid romance novels – even though everyone has one.

He could not have anticipated his being on the team for what is, probably, the most important undercover mission of his life. His only comfort is that she seems like a very honest person, so she might not even have realized, yet, what they are.

He’s lucky his cover is socially awkward or his gaping while he tried to force his mouth to form a lie he couldn’t speak to her would’ve been a dead give away.

He’s also lucky that his soulmate is who she is – she’s honest and sweet and kind and – the main point is that he’s lucky because she never realizes. He thinks that maybe it’s going to come out a few times – she’ll start to say something to him and then pause with a funny look on her face – but ever time he arches an eyebrow and prompts her to continue she just blinks at him, uses some eight syllable words he’s almost sure she’s making up, and continues on as normal.

He knows that if she figures it out she’d be telling him – he’s overheard her and Skye’s numerous conversations about how wonderful having a soulmate must be and how they would each respond to doubt that.

She doesn’t figure it out.

He almost breaks – almost tells her when she’s going wan and pale and _dying_. He knows her knowing won’t help her – that she’s fighting for her life already and she doesn’t need one more thing to regret, but he wants her to know. He wants her to look at him, just _once_ , with love and hope and –

He doesn’t tell her. Not because he thinks she’s going to survive – he doesn’t. He’s not lucky enough to be soulmates with her and to ever have that work out, he just figured it would be a case of her hating him and not of her _dying_. He’d rather she hate him. No, he doesn’t tell her because she doesn’t deserve the extra pain he knows she’d feel upon finding out she’s his soulmate right before she dies.

Later on, after he’s jumped out of a plane for her – he would’ve done it even if Fitz hadn’t been babbling about the cure working – he’s glad he didn’t.

She looks at him while they’re bobbing in the ocean waiting for the closest field office to get a helicopter to them with hope and love and – he doesn’t kiss her, but it takes all of his self-control.

Being around her always takes all of his self-control. He knows some things are a mistake – like showing off by whipping his shirt off at the drop of a hat in front of her. But he has to be as much of his boring agent of SHIELD cover as he can be around her without lying outright, and he has to do something. 

It doesn’t really help.

Sure, he takes some risks he shouldn’t just to feel her fingers – even if she’s patching him up. But he doesn’t get to touch. It’s agony being so close to her and not being allowed to touch.

It’s worse watching her flirt.

It’s part of the reason he follows May back to her room. The other part is, of course, that it’s a good play. But he’s not an idiot, he knows the team will figure it out eventually and even though he knows she won’t even care that he slept with May – doesn’t even know that there’s a reason she _should_ care – it still feels like revenge for having to watch her flirt with every other goddamn specialist the team runs into.

Flirting with Skye, he’ll admit, is childish.

But the team either hasn’t figured out that he’s sleeping with May – which is both alarming and concerning, Jemma cannot be safe being so unaware of her surroundings – or worse, Jemma just doesn’t care.

The first time he flirts with Skye in front of her she blinks and straightens and leaves and that – well, it’s more than he’s gotten out of her in a long time and he knows that it doesn’t matter – that if she knew they were soulmates she’d be with him in an instant. But she can’t know.

Lorelei almost ruins everything.

He’s damned lucky that in an effort to be coy or to try to draw out the pain for May, she starts off by hinting. He’s even luckier that May assumes the bitch’s use of “mate” is some archaic form of courtship address and not simply half of soulmate.

He’s so relieved that May assumes Lorelei was talking about _Skye_ that he doesn’t really consider the consequences that now he has to pretend a deeper romance with another member of the team he doesn’t care about.

With his luck he’s not even going to be surprised if he has to pretend to fake date both Fitz and Coulson before this is through – it seems more likely than thinking he’ll ever get the chance to do more than lay a comforting hand on his soulmate’s shoulder.

That’s not what happens.

It’s a small comfort that Garrett still doesn’t know about Jemma.

Raina, he thinks, might know somehow. Or suspect at least. But then she takes the bait of Skye and he lets himself relax, mentally, while becoming visibly more uncomfortable.

It’s a relief to be away from her though – she’s safe and no one knows and she’s going to be fine.

So of course Garrett orders him back to the team.

It’s horrible and the only highlight is that Jemma hugs him hard enough that he can hear his bruised ribs creak.

It’s a struggle not to grab her and run – away from SHIELD and away from HYDRA and just lock her up somewhere safe.

He doesn’t.

Instead he flirts with Skye and tries to get the hard drive and ends up gasping for breath as his heart spasms in his chest.

He’d never had any illusions about Garrett – about what he was willing to do and who he was willing to sacrifice to get what he wanted. It was almost a relief, even as he guided the Bus away from where Coulson and Skye had dropped out and rubbed at his chest.

Garrett didn’t know about Jemma – Jemma was safe. It didn’t matter that she’d have to hate him now, as long as she was safe.

Naturally it was only days later that he had her and Fitz cornered, the men around him with orders to bring them both in.

He grit his teeth and refused to meet her gaze, satisfying himself with the worry and confusion in Fitz’s. Even when she asked, voice shaking with some unknown emotion, “Are you really HYDRA? You’re not in the incentives program or…something?”

It was a relief to tell her, to cut her a quick glance – not willing to see her confusion turn to hate, and say, “Yeah, I’m really HYDRA.”

She doesn’t say anything else.

Fitz has plenty to say – pleading with him. He’s convinced that Grant isn’t doing this by choice.

He resists pointing out that he can’t lie to Jemma. They don’t know that – it’s good that she doesn’t know that. He can’t make himself look at her, knowing he’s only going to see hate, but he can only imagine how much worse it would be if she knew who he was to her – who he was supposed to be.

He’s her soulmate.

And that’s why he destroys their comms and orders his men to tie Fitz and Jemma up instead of taking them back to the Bus.

One of the men protests, says, “Garrett said –”

And then never says anything again because he’s got a bullet right between his eyes. Grant’s question of, “Anyone else?” is rhetorical.

It’s also the first time Fitz has shut up about Grant being a good guy and the silence is almost louder than the gunshot was.

He accidentally meets Jemma’s eyes over the body, the man was standing close to her and she’s got a bit of blood splatter across her cheek. He resists the urge to go to her, to wipe it off, to try to soothe her. She’s wide eyed with panic, her mouth slightly parted in shock.

She sits down quietly when Reynolds approaches her with the rope, holds her hands out and doesn’t make a fuss. Fitz has to be held down – Grant’s almost impressed with how hard the other man fights, but he doesn’t have time for this and that’s how Fitz ends up with an ICER round in his chest, propped next to Jemma as she sits quietly.

There are tears in her eyes when he leaves and he feels like the worst sort of person. And if there was a chance for him to change things, to actually be the good guy Fitz kept insisting he was, he would take it right then. Just to have her not look at him like that.

It won’t occur to him until the team storms the Centipede complex that they shouldn’t have known about the incentives program, that they must have been a step further in than anyone had known, for Jemma to so casually ask if he was involved in it.

He wishes he had lied – not to her, he can’t lie to her, but if he’d directed his answer at Fitz instead…

But it’s too late for regrets.

And if there’s one thing he can’t regret it’s that Jemma is still alive and healthy – even if he’s viewing her through the clear glass of the Vault.

If he wasn’t sure that no one knew he’d wonder if Coulson had figured it out, sent her down here to interrogate him since if he answers anything it will have to be the truth. But no, he thinks as she sits there quietly, checking her watch again nervously and chewing on her lower lip, she’s here for something else. Probably for accusations and ‘how could you’s’.

He waits, patiently, drinking in the sight of her. It’s been nearly three weeks since he’s seen her and he knows it might be much longer until the next time and he doesn’t want to forget anything. So he takes his time memorizing her as she gears up her courage.

Finally after what his internal clock tells him is just short of half an hour she pulls out her phone, nods to herself and taps something on the interface that controls his cell.

He’s not sure what he’s expecting – uncomfortable temperatures, loss of air, something worse – but he knows that her looking at him expectantly and saying, “Well, come on. We only have a short window,” and gesturing him forward isn’t it.

He stays where he is. “I know there’s a barrier there, Je–Simmons. I didn’t think you’d find something like that entertaining.”

She clicks her tongue and rolls her eyes. “I took the barrier down, _Grant_. Now come _on_.”

It takes him a moment – he knows she can’t lie to him and yet…

He pushes his fingers through the air, still expecting to feel the oddly cold sturdiness of the barrier. There’s nothing there and he steps forward, turning to her with surprise. “What…”

She reaches out and grabs his hand, pulls him all the way across and squeezes his hand. “You better not actually be in love with Skye, because you're _my_ soulmate and I don’t share.”

He feels like the world has shifted and he’s left feeling flat footed and like he’s missed something. And then she’s shoving a gun in his hand and saying, “Now, you’re kidnapping me. Lets go. Try not to kill anyone I care about, okay?”

Later she’ll turn to him and laughingly ask, “What, you thought only specialists were HYDRA?” and he’ll get to kiss her like he’s been dreaming about.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love. 
> 
> You can find my writing tumblr [here](http://capriciouswrites.tumblr.com/). It's normally more active than it is currently. <3


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